Friday, October 06, 2006

Death of HindiI just have to blog about the attempts(futile of course) of a friend of mine to speak Hindi...this blog will probably only be appreciated by people who know a decent level of Hindi and Tamil. having been exposed to the right mix of north (15 yrs) and south (5 yrs) I can manage both Hindi and Tamil quite well and one of my favorite pastimes is to tease ppl who murder(read strangle,stab,poison) Hindi Tamil etc..i do not disclose the name of my friend for the sole reason that she threatened to strangle me the way she strangled Hindi(and oh boy I sure don’t want to die such a cruel death)..I will just call her S for now :):)...

it all began on a day when S suddenly decided that she was going to practice speaking Hindi...the conversation went something like this..

S : hey I feel very inferior to u guys man..Ok from today I m going to make a serious attempt to talk in Hindi...Hey wait I will translate that into Hindi...

today se mein Hindi par baat kar

Now let me explain as to why she made this mistake. In Tamil sometimes the same word 'lu' is used for both on and in. so on the table would be table lu and in Hindi would also be Hindi lu...

so S decided that Hindi also used the same par for both...

after we explained this nuance of Hindi to her she said, “ok ok wait I will try to translate ,the fishes are swimming in water”

roughly translated as "I m going to cry...u guys are really bad...if a girl attempts to talk in Hindi u will laugh at her eh??"

probably she realized that the sentence was not something that premchand would approve of so she asked us

"Hindi par "tum all" eppidi solluvanga"???

translated as "how do u say everyone in Hindi??"

we told her that the word for everyone was "tum sab log" and she dint get it so she said"maafi..ek aur bar aao aao"..

which meant “sorry..?come again"..LOL!!!:D:D

and the best part is still to come..apparently S has finished all levels of Hindi(prathmik,praveshika,rashtrabasha etc...) and was felicitated with a shawl for proficiency in Hindi in class 6!!!and the last level had a viva round in which she had to talk in Hindi with the examiner and the examiner was so impressed(???) with her Hindi "speaking skills" that he gave her 75/100 for viva..

No..i don't want to hear any comments about the Indian Eduacation System not being upto mark!! ; ) ; )

12 comments:

LOL! It reminds me of a conversation a "Gujarat Bred Keralite" friend had with her tamizhian roomie...it goes like this...

GBK: What movie (DVD on rent from Indian Store) did u get this time? Tam: "Hawas"!GBK (surprised): What???? Why did you get that movie?Tam: Oh, It had a very intriguing title...so, I thought it will be different and interesting.GBK (with a puzzled look): Huh...what is so intriguing about Hawas? It is as clear as it can be!Tam: Oh...I thought "Hawas" means "Airs"...isn't that interesting?!GBK (flabbergasted): speechless and in splits for a few mins!

@srinivasheh heh!!LOL!!what a conversation..i know what the GBK must ve felt like...and no i dont say "lu" wheni speak in tamil..i speak really good tamil as a matter of fact..but i m miserable when it comes to tamil typing!!

@sandhyaha ha ha ha!!very funny..its quite surprising that u do not know who i m referring to in my blog..dont u think it is a strange coincidence that the girl's name and ur name begin with S??? ;)...funny!!:P:P

I told my GBK friend about this blog and my subsequent comment. She became all enthu and narrated one more such incident which goes on to show that our Kannadiga brethrens are not much better off! Thought I'll share it with u...

Friend1: Where is this GBK?Friend2: She had said her coming to the wedding was rather doubtful...Kan(surprised): No, no...she told specifically that she will come!Friends 1&2: Huh?!

[GBK doesn't come to the wedding]

[Scene 3: GBK and Kan in office the next day...]

Kan (angry): Arre, y didn't u come to the wedding last night after saying u'll come?GBK (puzzled): When did I say I WILL come...I had said "shayad main aaungi"...Kan (more angry): Then???GBK (more puzzled): What then?Kan (may be a bit of puzzlement creeping into his voice): U correctly recall what u said but then insist u didn't do anything wrong...GBK: Of course...

[It later emerged that our hindi-challenged Kan understood "shaayad main aaungi" as something similar to "bus/train/auto mein aaungi"! He assumed "shaayad" was some hindi name for a mode of transport! LOL]

@srinivasan,LOL!!heh heh..i know just how that GBK must have felt man..i m one of the two hindi speaking makkal in a hostel consisting of 200 ppl and most of the times my patience is tested by hindi speakers like this!!;);)